This is the earliest example, that I have come across, of Shimano’s excellent habit for producing ring-binders full of exploded diagrams.

In line with later versions, this example has each and every exploded diagram religiously labelled with a date code in the format YYMM - and nothing could be more helpful to the bumbling amateur historian than that. This has led me to revise many of my opinions about the introduction dates of early Shimano derailleurs - generally indicating that they were introduced a couple of years earlier than I had previously thought.

Of the many dozens of pages in this document, I have scanned the section covering Dura-Ace and the section covering derailleurs (which strangely does not include the Dura-Ace (Crane) models).

• Publisher: Shimano
• Country: Japan
• Date: 1973
• Derailleur brands: Shimano
• Derailleurs: too numerous to mention - see individual pages